going home

in less than 48 hours, i will be home. misty and i fly out saturday morning, arriving in la at 11:45. Just in time to hit in-n-out for lunch on the way home. it is a part of my history.....in-n-out. besides my immediate family, the thing i miss most about home is in-n-out. they make the best hamburgers and fries ever. such a simple thing, hamburger, lettuce, grilled onions, condiments and a bun. nothing makes me feel like i am home better than that stupid hamburger. i have been gone for 21 yrs, but duarte will always be home to me. don't get me wrong, i am so happy i made the choice to raise my kids here, in alabama, but home is home. the place you grew up. where you made all those idiotic mistakes, but your family loved you anyway. where i learned to ride a horse, what an awesome christmas that was. where sheila and i were pushed into the half filled pool so that neither one of us could say we went in first. ( we dug that pool ourselves, dad is an amazing designer) we learned to hammer a nail, put up sheetrock, water that stupid garden. sheila became the one with the green thumb, put me in the kitchen any day, everyone knows how i love to bake. building onto the original house took forever...or at least we thought so. the fire in the stairwell, being scared to death with the roof going on, so many saturdays spent with friends and family working on the house. my senior year, sheila and i finally had our own bedrooms. i had baby blue walls with thick chocolate carpet. my dream room, what can i say, it was the 70's. desiree lives in my old bedroom now. she has done a great job redecorating it. the whole addition has been remodeled. dad again with his visions. a home for mom and dad now. sheila and her family living downstairs. i am excited yet anxious at the same time about going home. i am planning on spending time with my dad and mom, my family...sister, brother in law, nieces, nephew and of course the great niece and new nephew, with my kids there too. all of my immediate and extended family together, leaning on each other for love and support. for whatever reason god has brought us together, this will be a wonderful memory that all of us can put away in our hearts to draw on later....so, lets get on with it. california here i come, in-n-out my first stop!

unexpected news

i wrote a couple of weeks ago about my father having esophageal cancer. i have heard of it before but didn't know it was #8 among cancers in this country. dad had already had a test about 3 months ago and the cancer wasn't there, so they found it early, which is good. we were all hoping for a quick fix, surgery, and poof it would be gone. unfortunately that won't be the case. after upcoming tests - pet scan, cardio check up, kidney function test, etc...if no cancer detected anywhere else he will have 85% of his esophagus, 30% of his stomach removed in a 6/8 hour surgery. 10-14 days in the hospital and 8 weeks recovery period. i am not even thinking about if there is more cancer, treating with chemo, radiation and then the surgery. it was so much easier when i had cancer. misty told me that it was my job to stay alive and their job was to make sure i was taken care of. my dad and i now have something in common that no one else in the family can share in. we have both seen cancer from different views. as soon as we find out when the surgery is we (misty, sasha, bobbie and caroline and i) will leave for california.

my mind has been in 4th gear for days now. random thoughts, fears, worry, what ifs, and what nows. but i keep going back to what cancer did for me, it allowed me another avenue to glorify the lord. what? did i just say that? how can something like cancer glorify god? the beauty of being human is the need to fall face down in order to experience gods grace. the beauty of his grace is how quickly we see his mercy. then the heavens open up and he sends his spirit upon us, his covenant with us. all of this is given to us just because we asked. i know many prayers are being said for dad, and god is listening carefully to each one. he is glorified in my cry for help and for each prayer said. we are here to glorify god. to be in an active relationship with him. cancer, prayers, for his glory. i know i am rambling on, another thing i do to keep from thinking too much. my dad and i don't always agree on things, sometimes we are on opposite ends, but on this, bringing edification and glory to our god, i know we are on the same page. see you soon dad

the children of my heart

this is the first real sunday i am home after i said goodbye to the basement. i didn't have to bake anything this morning, and i didn't have to hurry and get there early to make coffee. actually, i loved baking for everyone, and making coffee in anticipation of the morning to come. i read my bible this morning, listened to worship music, and prayed. i missed lily grace meeting me at the door with amazing energy saying "good morning, miss kim". i missed brittons smiling face talking about something he is excited about while i secretly pass him some extra change, and then ends the conversation with a thank you and a hug. i missed maggie coming down the stairs on her bottom. i missed the older girls chesney and claire giggling, cade giving caroline a smile, the dixon boys playing with cars, anna charlotte and delainey in their cute clothes, hadden and his flirty smile, madeline and her rolly polly arms. brady waking up at the end of service. i have been a part of all of these kids lives, most of them since they have been born. gifts from god to me. as i go in search for a new church family, i will take each of these kids with me deeply wrapped inside my heart. sadness abounds, pain comes in the night, but joy does come in the morning. this small season of my life, will soon end, and i will find a new home, for all things work together for my good.

memories, old and new

labor day weekend, i am at the beach on the gulf coast. it is so beautiful here, it's hard to believe that in the last 4 months millions of gallons of oil has spilled. but because of that oil spill, and merrie, i am able to enjoy a long weekend with sasha, bobbie and caroline, along with rodney, melinda, claire and maggie calfee. i have never stayed so close to the beach before, i have never been so amazed at gods wondrous handwork. the dolphins swim by 3-4 times a day. they are so beautiful, some swimming two by two, so close to each other, they must be mates. the sand, the water, the sky. schools of tiny fish, crabs and so many different kind of birds i couldn't count. the children laughing and playing all around me, the tiny cries of surprise, the squeals, the real tears when they have to get out of the water.


while describing this vacation, i am quickly drawn to my family vacations growing up. i remember vacations like this, my mom & dad, me and my sister sheila. the first real one, we drove up to british columbia and back, sitting in the back of a light blue '64 cadillac, with a home made desk my dad had put together. it had a map in the middle of our trip, and we would draw a line on the distance we had gone each day. we listened to herb albert and the tijuana brass, andy williams, glenn miller and a bunch of other big bands that I can't remember the names of.….....all still fresh in my mind when i hear them play now. we stayed at a motel with a pool....wow, we had finally made it! we didn't want to wait until we registered, we wanted to go directly to the pool. there was an ice machine that dispensed ice for free, we could put the bucket from our room in it and it would fill up like magic. i didn't know you could get ice any other way than with a metal ice tray. we traveled northward for days. when we finally reached canada, the only thing i can remember is loosing my wallet at butchart gardens. it had 75 cents in it. sheila and i had a bunch of matching outfits, i had gotten my hair trimmed before we left, she cut it too short and I ended up with a pixie, dad wore socks with shorts, and moms hair was frozen in time. the things we remember after decades go by. i really remember how happy we all were. It was family time, and it was good.
I would spend a few weeks each summer with my grandparents. moms' parents lived in bakersfield, the thing I remember the most is the water cooler they had cooling off the house. it was in the living room and i would lay on the floor very still and feel the damp coolness it put out. grandpa cooked some frog legs one summer, there was a canal across the street we would play in and around. summers were so hot there. dads' parents lived in many places, he was a pastor that would actually build a building and start a church in it. we spent time helping him.
later years we spent summers at a cabin, fishing, laying out, playing cards and eating ice cream out of a huge tub we would buy before we got there. i can't remember the name of the ice cream, but if i called my dad right now, he would. when we went fishing, you could see through the water and watch them bite the hook. back at the cabin i would scale them, sheila would gut them, mom would cook them. the last time we went i was a sophomore in high school. we had a foreign exchange student with us, her name was Alba. (my parents stayed close to her family in paraguay, she died several years ago of breast cancer.)
when we got a bit older we started going to trinity lake, just south of shasta. we would camp out, you know, sleep in cots outside under the stars! listening to james taylor, eagles and others on the portable 8 track player. we would bathe, shave our legs and wash our hair in the lake. the irwins, the gumms and the steelheads were there too. we went for another two years. my senior year was the last year we went, my sister had an exchange student that year that went with us. we also went to hawaii that year, the big island and mauna loa. i remember mom & dad wanted us to drive up some volcano to see all the greenery, seriously, didn't they know all we wanted to do was go to the beach. the two of us also learned to surf while we were there.  it was the last summer it was just the four of us. there are so many small moments during those times I will always remember...the smells, the stars, the music, the quietness of the outdoors.
i wish i could have given more of those same kind of memories to my kids. we were never very smart with our money and really never did a yearly vacation. when we did go, it was very stressful, renay and I didn't get along real well and i am sure the kids felt it.
i really didn't start out this post with remembrance in mind. but I had that same sense of peace and family on the beach that i felt when I was young. i felt like a little girl, wishing my mom & dad were there with me.


i found out the day before we left that my dad has esophageal cancer.....how could that be? nothing can bring down my dad. he is the one that made that special desk for the caddy that we took our first vacation in. he showed me all the important things in life like how to hammer, put up sheet rock, opening up your home to people in need. he taught us how to plant and water a garden, to give up our saturdays all during our high school years to build a house, for us to learn about sacrifice, how to work together and with others. he would wake us up and make us get up out of bed every time a space rocket took off, no matter what time of night it was. telling me that feelings just are, not good or bad, they just are. i will never forget the look on his face as he gave me away at my wedding.
i am praying that god will guide the drs during the surgery and they will get everything with little or no treatment afterword. i talked to mom today, she said he had a real peace about all this. i know that peace, i felt it when i was diagnosed. i didn't suddenly feel the need to go sky diving, sail around the world, ride a bull named fu manchu or any other stupid daring thing. i only wanted to see my grandchild, and that gift was given to me in caroline.
All of our vacations showed me the importance of family, exploring new things, sometimes doing things we weren't sure we could do, and the special times together. I am going home for my sisters birthday this christmas. To be with my original family, on vacation again.

thanks mom and dad, we may have thought you guys were weird growing up, but you were so loving and giving, teaching us all the while.

here are the sweet girls i was blessed to spend time with this past weekend

maggie, clair, and my caroline